Heathcliff's sudden return

Heathcliff's sudden return to the neighborhood after a three-year absence, appearing at Thrushcross Grange on a September evening, marks a decisive turning point in the novel. His transformation from a degraded, illiterate laborer into a tall, athletic, and dignified man with an air of military carriage and concealed ferocity reopens the central emotional and social conflicts of the story, setting in motion the chain of events that will lead to Catherine's final illness, Isabella's ruin, and the systematic execution of his revenge against both the Earnshaw and Linton families.

The Return and Its Immediate Circumstances

On a mellow September evening, as Nelly Dean was returning from the garden with a basket of apples, a deep, foreign-sounding voice spoke her name from the porch. The speaker was a tall man dressed in dark clothes, with a dark face and hair, leaning against the side with his fingers on the latch. When a ray of light fell on his features, Nelly recognized the eyes: the cheeks were sallow and half covered with black whiskers, the brows lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. It was Heathcliff, returned after three years of complete silence. He had been waiting an hour, daring not enter, and his first words to Nelly were a demand to see Catherine: "I'm in hell till you do!" He had grown a tall, athletic, well-formed man, beside whom Edgar Linton seemed quite slender and youth-like; his upright carriage suggested the idea of his having been in the army. His countenance was much older in expression and decision of feature than Edgar's, and though a half-civilised ferocity lurked yet in his depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, it was subdued, and his manner was even dignified, quite divested of roughness though stern for grace.

The Encounter with Catherine and Edgar

When Nelly delivered the news, Catherine flew upstairs breathless and wild, too excited to show gladness, and flung her arms around Edgar's neck, crying that Heathcliff had come back. Edgar, crossly, told her not to strangle him for that, and suggested the kitchen as a more suitable place for the visitor. Catherine, with a droll expression half angry and half laughing, proposed setting two tables: one for Edgar and Isabella as gentry, the other for Heathcliff and herself as the lower orders. Edgar relented and bid Heathcliff step up, but warned Catherine to try to be glad without being absurd. When Heathcliff appeared at the door, Catherine sprang forward, took both his hands, and led him to Linton, then seized Linton's reluctant fingers and crushed them into his. Heathcliff dropped his slight hand and stood looking at him coolly till he chose to speak. Edgar, with forced politeness, invited him to sit down, saying Mrs. Linton would have him give a cordial reception. Heathcliff answered that he would stay an hour or two willingly. He took a seat opposite Catherine, who kept her gaze fixed on him as if she feared he would vanish; he did not raise his to her often, but a quick glance now and then sufficed, flashing back each time more confidently the undisguised delight he drank from hers. Edgar grew pale with pure annoyance, a feeling that reached its climax when Catherine rose, stepped across the rug, seized Heathcliff's hands again, and laughed like one beside herself.

The Revelation of His Motives and Plans

Heathcliff revealed that he had heard of Catherine's marriage not long since, and while waiting in the yard below had meditated a plan: just to have one glimpse of her face, a stare of surprise and pretended pleasure, afterwards settle his score with Hindley, and then prevent the law by doing execution on himself. Her welcome had put these ideas out of his mind, but he warned her to beware of meeting him with another aspect next time. He told Nelly that he had fought through a bitter life since he last heard her voice, and that he struggled only for her. When asked where he would lodge, he answered that he was going to Wuthering Heights, as Mr. Earnshaw had invited him when he called that morning. Nelly pondered this painfully, musing that he might be turning out a bit of a hypocrite, coming into the country to work mischief under a cloak, and felt a presentiment that he had better have remained away. Catherine explained to Nelly that Heathcliff's principal reason for resuming a connection with his ancient persecutor was a wish to install himself in quarters at walking distance from the Grange, and an attachment to the house where they had lived together, and likewise a hope that she would have more opportunities of seeing him there than if he settled in Gimmerton. He meant to offer liberal payment for permission to lodge at the Heights, and she doubted her brother's covetousness would prompt him to accept.

The Transformation of His Person and Its Significance

The physical and social transformation Heathcliff had undergone was the most immediately striking aspect of his return. Nelly, who had known him as a dirty, ragged, black-haired child brought from Liverpool, and later as a degraded, slouching youth, was amazed to behold him now. Edgar Linton, who had called him a "gipsy" and a "ploughboy," was at a loss how to address him. The change was not merely external: Heathcliff's manner was even dignified, and he retained a great deal of the reserve for which his boyhood was remarkable, serving to repress all startling demonstrations of feeling. Yet the old ferocity was not extinguished but subdued, and his eyes still held that black fire. Catherine, who had once said that it would degrade her to marry him, now saw him as worthy of anyone's regard, and told Edgar that it would honour the first gentleman in the country to be his friend. The return thus reasserted the fundamental identity that Catherine had always claimed: that whatever their souls were made of, his and hers were the same, and that her love for him resembled the eternal rocks beneath, a source of little visible delight but necessary. Heathcliff's own words to Catherine during their final meeting before her death would echo this: "You loved me—then what right had you to leave me?" and later, at her grave, he would cry out, "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" His return, therefore, was not merely a homecoming but the reassertion of a bond that no time, distance, or social elevation could sever, and the beginning of a campaign that would, as he himself later reflected, prove an absurd termination to his violent exertions, when he found the will to lift a slate off either roof had vanished.